Remember when champagne was sidestepped by sancerre, then rosé was the new sancerre, and then lambrusco became the new rosé? Well, guess what, champagne is now the new champagne -- vintage champagne to be precise. As a lover of champers, it didn't require hardly any arm-twisting for me to be convinced of this sparkling revelation, but my first ever vertical tasting of Palmes d'Or (or anything) sealed the deal. Nicolas Feuillatte hosted a marvelously bubblicious luncheon with the winemaker Jean-Pierre Vincent at the chic adour by Alain Ducasse at St. Regis last week. David Hershkovits, my boss who invited me to this event, and I were only too happy to be there -- a three-hour champagne lunch on a Monday is hard to beat! According to Wikipedia, vertical tasting means sampling different vintages of the same wine type from the same winery. I didn't know this before. Yes, work can be so fun sometimes.

So over a four-course meal that ended with raspberry créme brulee (pictured above) paired with Palmes d'Or Rosé 2000, I got to taste seven different vintage PdO's from nutty to fruity. My favorite: PdO 1985. This almost quarter-century-old bubbly diva is less fizzy, but also not as bitter and a whole lot smoother! David and I did eventually get back to the office but needless to say, not much work got done.